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The Autism Project: Students with autism fend for themselves

In the third of our six-part series, students with autism find programs and services vary in Ontario schools, and parents spend those years navigating an inadequate education system.

Kelly Ford sits in the bedroom of her 14-year-old son Jackson. When Jackson started high school this fall at Danforth Collegiate, he didn't get any help, Ford says. (LUCAS OLENIUK / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Kristin Rushowy

Mon., Nov. 12, 2012

Parents step onto a new battleground the day their autistic child enters Ontario’s public school system.

If they thought the early years searching for a diagnosis and treatment were difficult, they are in for a shock once their son or daughter enters the classroom.

Programs vary from one school board to another, even from school to school. Some teachers are trained to handle an autistic child’s outbursts; most are not.

And if problems arise, parents are bounced like ping-pong balls from one education official to another.

When Kelly Ford’s son Jackson was in elementary school, she received calls almost every day “with him screaming in the office.” He received no special education support and school staff didn’t know how to calm him.

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Not until Jackson was in a supportive program at Toronto’s Earl Grey Senior Public School did he get the help he needed. Jackson was fully integrated in a regular class; his special education teacher gave lessons in social and life skills, and kept in close contact with the family.

He thrived — made the honour roll and was class valedictorian at his Grade 8 graduation.

Then, things fell apart again when Jackson, now 14, started high school in September.

“There was no support, no training, not enough staffing,” said Ford. He still has no help, she says.

“We are in absolute crisis here.”

Five years ago, 7,000 Ontario public schoolchildren were identified as autistic. Today, that number has more than doubled. The Toronto District School Board, Canada’s largest, estimates 1 in 88, or close to 3,000, is on the autism spectrum. The Durham District School Board puts their number at 1 in 75.

Canadian children, on average, are not diagnosed until age 4, after many have already started school. That means the majority of those kids will still not have received therapy.

Yet there is no mandatory teacher training in autism, or special education for regular classroom teachers. Teachers can take an elective course in university, or take extra courses once they start their careers, but they pay for those and take them on their own time.

Isabel Killoran, a professor at York University’s Faculty of Education and former special education teacher, says a teacher’s greatest challenge is that “no two children with autism are the same.”

She teaches a 36-hour course in special education, helping teachers learn common strategies that can help in class, depending on the child’s needs.

Children with autism think and learn differently. They need organization and structure, lessons in social skills and how to manage stress; they don’t tolerate a lot of noise and distractions.

Killoran’s big message though: behaviour is communication.

“It’s our job to be detective and figure out what’s triggering the behaviour. A lot of time it is something that’s environmental, something happening in the classroom.”

All school boards have an autism resource team — special education teachers, psychologists, speech language pathologists — to provide support to schools, but even school officials recognize it isn’t enough.

The Durham board launched its own autism training centre for teachers. It instructs them in how to set up a classroom to minimize distraction, how to use visual schedules so children with autism know what to expect, and how to anticipate an autistic child’s unruly behaviour. The program already has a waiting list.

Says Doug Crichton, the board’s superintendent of special education: “We’re working on the premise that in almost every classroom, certainly in every school, we’re going to have children with autism.”

He enrolled in the school’s support program for students with autism, but actual support never materialized, says Ford.

“Jackson’s day is no different than any other student at that school.”

Denise Martins, the principal at Danforth Collegiate, said the school is doing the best it can based upon the staffing provided to us. The school’s support program includes one full-time and one part-time teacher, a child and youth worker and special needs assistant, and a social skills class runs over the lunch hour.

But Ford says it’s not the school or teachers that are to blame; she faults the board for not providing adequate resources. She says her son is being bullied by other students.

Other parents echo Ford’s frustrations with Ontario’s school system: one mother says she stopped working because of daily calls to pick up her son; another spent the night washing ink off her Grade 9 son after he was accosted by older boys; some parents decide to transfer their children to private school, spending thousands in tuition.

Janis Jaffe-White, co-ordinator of the Toronto Family Network, a volunteer group that supports families with special needs children, says the Ministry of Education could solve the problem, by monitoring school boards and enforcing its own policies.

“Inconsistency is a huge issue — there’s a lack of consistency within and across school boards. It’s one of the areas where there needs to be great improvement,” she says.

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